Advanced Energy Capital Signs Funding Deal with Renew Energy Partners

NEW YORK — Advanced Energy Capital (AEC) of Brooklyn has signed an agreement with and Renew Energy Partners of Boston to provide funding up to $25 million in energy and water efficiency and on-site clean energy retrofit projects in commercial, institutional and industrial (CI&I) buildings.

Advance Energy Capital is a specialty finance firm that provides financing for the energy industry. It focuses on small- and medium-size businesses, and its capital pool allows it to fund significant projects. AEC enables energy firms to increase their revenues by offering customers embedded financing without up-front payments.

Renew Energy Partners helps building owners with energy retrofits, providing services such as replacing outdated HVAC systems with energy efficient systems. Renew uses multiple deal structures for its projects, including energy services agreements (ESA), energy efficiency leases (EEL) or power purchase agreements (PPA) in the case of combined heat and power projects.

“The AEC team’s experience and interest in the clean energy industry make them a perfect fit for our commercial, industrial and institutional customer base,” said Steve Pritchard, principal at Renew Energy Partners, in a statement.

“Given their partnership with Greenbacker Group and Greenbacker’s $1.5 billion raise for green energy finance, we are optimistic that this is the first of many deals to come,” added Charlie Lord, another principal at Renew.

The first group of transactions, which will be comprehensive energy efficiency and water conservation retrofits in commercial and industrial buildings, are expected to close in the fourth quarter, with the bulk of the projects expected to be closed in 2015.
Renew’s approach to project development and financing offers building owners the opportunity to replace outdated systems with energy efficient systems without upfront capital and without adding debt to the balance sheet.

"AEC continues to screen a wide range of energy opportunities and we enthusiastically welcome RENEW as a strategic partner in the energy efficiency space. We’re looking forward to an outstanding long-term relationship with Charlie, Steve and their team." said Rick Rudy, principal of AEC.

“The combination of RENEW’s project development, project knowledge and deal structuring expertise, and AEC’s credit and finance expertise should help make a huge impact on carbon reduction,” said Jack Doueck, principal and co- founder of AEC. “We view RENEW as an innovator in the energy efficiency space, and are pleased to assist in the build out of their portfolio of ‘turn-key’ projects in targeted C&I sectors. They and we see exponential growth ahead.”